Kuwait sentences couple to death for killing Filipino maid

KUWAIT CITY (dpa) - A Lebanese man and his Syrian wife were sentenced to death by hanging on Sunday after they were convicted of killing a Filipino maid in Kuwait.
The verdict, issued by the Kuwaiti Criminal Court in absentia, can be appealed, Mohammed al-Otaibi of the Kuwait Society for Human Rights told dpa.

The first suspect, identified as Lebanese national Nader Essam Assaf, was arrested in Lebanon in late February. His wife, Mona Hassoun, was detained by authorities in the Syrian capital Damascus. The couple has not yet been extradited to Kuwait. They were the last employers of 29-year-old Joanna Daniela Demafelis, whose body was found stuffed in a freezer in an abandoned apartment in Kuwait in February. An autopsy revealed that she had been beaten, and had suffered broken ribs, internal bleeding and contusions. The death of Demafelis has exacerbated tensions between Kuwait and the Philippines. The Philippines has ordered a deployment ban on all overseas Filipino workers to Kuwait on the instructions of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has condemned abuses and mistreatment of Filipinos in the Gulf state. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------